Alhambra’s City Council places moratoriums on e-cigarettes and tattoos

ALHAMBRA >> With three, swift rounds of votes, the City Council on Monday voted to restrict what some would call Alhambra’s undesirable population.

The council unanimously passed two 45-day moratoriums on any new tattoo parlors and electronic cigarette shops.

E-cigarettes are battery-powered handheld devices that deliver an inhalable dose of nicotine or flavored vapor.

On a 3-1 vote, the council also passed the first reading of an ordinance that would place “vape” in the same category as old-school tobacco, meaning the city may eventually restrict smoking in public places, restaurants and parks.

“The people who want to promote no smoking in public places also say that it sets a bad example — that kids should not see adults smoking,” Mayor Steven Placido said. “I think it’s more than just secondhand smoke that they have an issue about. From a distance, you don’t know if someone is smoking an electronic cigarette or a real cigarette.”

The moratoriums went into effect immediately, but the City Council must vote again on Oct. 28 if it wants to alter current nonsmoking regulations.

Councilman Gary Yamauchi, the dissenting vote, said “sufficient evidence” would make him change current smoking laws.

“I really don’t know that much about these electronic cigarettes and nobody has told me yet where the harmful part of this is or where the irritating part of this is,” he said.

A search on EurekAlert, a database of worldwide scientific studies, yields few studies about the health risks of e-cigarettes. The three studies that are directly related to health hazards are preliminary studies with small sample sizes.

City Attorney Joe Montes said the Food and Drug Administration likely will release draft regulations for e-cigarettes within the next 60 days. The FDA may apply the Tobacco Control Act of 2009 to the e-cigarette machines, thus regulating an industry that isn’t highly restricted. Under this FDA control, vape vendors would no longer be able to sell their products online and large health hazard warning labels would be required.

Additionally Senate Bill 648 — authored by Sen. Ellen Corbett, D-San Leandro — is working its way through the state legislature. If passed, it would put e-cigarettes in the same regulatory box as traditional tobacco cigarettes.

So, Alhambra might beat S.B. 648 to the punch.

As for the three tattoo parlors in Alhambra, City Council members are worried they may multiply and said the municipal code doesn’t properly address limitations such as where they may be placed.

Since February, staff has had at least four inquiries from people who want to open another shop, said Tara Schultz, interim development services director. The real numbers are more, she said, but staff doesn’t document all of them.

These parlors pose a “current and immediate threat to the public health, safety and welfare” partially because unsanitary conditions could lead to infectious diseases such as hepatitis, syphilis and HIV, a staff report said. It listed these dangers even though tattoo artists must be certified by the state.

Additionally, the report listed “secondary negative impacts, such as an increase in crime and the sale of illegal drugs immediately surrounding tattoo parlors and the impairment of the market values and aesthetic and visual qualities of the properties adjacent to tattoo parlors.”

While Andy Tran, the manager of My Tattoo, said he is happy the moratorium will limit his competition, he said the tattoo industry is no longer something only gangsters and riffraff get. In fact, police officers, people in the military, doctors, lawyers, soccer moms and grandmas come to his shop for permanent skin art, he said.

“You could call it a type of discrimination even — pre-set opinions based on appearance,” Tran said. “It’s very sad to hear people are still seeing tattoos as a negative. They’re not cheap. They take time. They’re kind of a luxury: People that can afford tattoos are not the same as they were before.”

His tattoos have a base price of $100, and some of his artists charge $250 an hour, Tran said.

As for e-cigarette shops, Alhambra has four of them. They all opened this year, city records showed. The city has received 24 inquiries from potential entrepreneurs about vape shops since the start of the year, City Manager Mary Swink said.

Sam Diban, manager of Super Vape Alhambra, said he, too, is glad he won’t get any competition soon. But he said there are other things the City Council should worry about, especially since scientific studies in this area are lacking.

“They should not allow people to chew gum because people can throw it on the floor,” Diban said. “When you smoke a cigarette, you throw it away and maybe you create ash and cause a fire. (But) these (e-cigs), everybody keeps it in their pocket. They keep it like a little, small machine like their cellphone.”

Diban said it’s OK if vapes are outlawed in public libraries, but they should be allowed everywhere else because the odor is virtually nonexistent. Secondhand smoke from cigarettes is obvious and may be annoying, but people might not smell anything foul even if they were in a room with 20 to 30 people smoking vape, Diban said. In fact, people who first walk into his store think he’s selling candy, not tobacco liquid or flavored vegetable glycerin, he said.

Placido, however, said the City Council could always change its restrictions on e-cigarettes pending the FDA’s decision. For now, Placido said he’s using common sense.

“The vapor that comes off must contain nicotine of some sort since that’s what they’re inhaling. So the leap for me to say that these electronic cigarettes are the same as regular cigarettes as far as their function in society is not a big leap for me to take.”